


Jimin's Answer

by doomingdawn



Series: Slave to the Rhythm [3]
Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 11:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8799274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomingdawn/pseuds/doomingdawn
Summary: EPILOGUE: a month later, Jimin reunites with Seokjin and Yoongi in a one bedroom apartment. They define a new normal and live a life happily ever after, so to speak. Our protagonist explains; featuring friendly appearances from Jungkook, Taehyung, and Hoseok.





	

**Author's Note:**

> or, Invega Sustenna

Most people gain weight, but I got heavy on another poor choice of treatment, so now I’m actually dropping back down. Slowly but surely. I get tired a lot, and anxious _sometimes,_ but it’s never how it used to be. I feel good. Bloated occasionally and uninspired once in a while, but that’s life. My social worker says this might be temporary. Seokjin drives me to counseling three times a week. It’s therapeutic. My psychiatrist helps me a lot, to unwind and work through my problems. He called my old mind a trespasser once, and I’ve stuck to that like glue. I like the way it’s framed. You’re allowed to feel uncomfortable with yourself and your own thoughts. Yoongi tells me to just be outspoken and to always tell them how I’m feeling or if I’m having odd things run through my mind.

Yoongi is working all of the time, but that’s okay. He’s supporting us. Seokjin stays at home and keeps an eye on me. He keeps me company. A lot of the paranoia is gone. I only get upset sometimes, and I don’t cry much. I just appreciate them a lot. He holds me down and helps me when I need it. I don’t give a lot of credit to the things I used to think; I don’t pay them much mind. But I do remember thinking of Seokjin as a rock, and Yoongi as a fire. I think that’s how things have turned out. I do still love them both, and it’s convenient and coincidentally perfect.

My mind is clearer than ever before. On a good day, I have energy to do things. I play a lot of video games. I journal for my outpatient program. I draw sometimes. It’s not very good! It’s easy to laugh at myself now, though. Seokjin laughs when I do, and his smile is so beautiful. I miss Yoongi while I write this, but it isn’t terrible. I know he’ll be back tonight. Pattern and habit help a lot. I don’t like to acknowledge what happened back there, but I know that I behaved in a way that didn’t deserve this support. Everyone tells me to be honest and to take responsibility, but to hide nothing. I’ve disclosed everything. Now I’m just trying to relax. I don’t play guitar much nowadays, but that’s fine. It’s hard to find time to do everything, even when you don’t have a job. Yoongi drained my bank account and started a savings. He says that I should go back to school when I’m ready. Thankfully, his health insurance will carry me until then. Some mornings are worse than others. Just dull, kind of empty. But being able to chill and to think are huge.

I love drinking tea. Sitting at the kitchen table, waking up early. I watch Seokjin type on his laptop. (I have a desktop, now.) He does his work every morning so that he can be with me while I watch soap operas in the afternoon and then help me with all my stuff after. He’s good at computer science, that’s what he’s studying. So it’s convenient enough to find an online program. He works so hard, and he isn’t always fast, but he never gets frustrated. It’s a beautiful balancing act that I take note of. It’s inspiring, but I don’t think he realizes how helpful it is. Just being around someone who is so stable keeps me calm.

Yoongi gets paid a decent amount of money. He works for a business during the day and promotes a club at night. Social media, but he’s a manager, so he’s usually here with me at night while Seokjin rests. Seokjin takes care of me during the day and Yoongi takes care of me at night. I don’t really think about the girl he kissed. We all talked about everything and there’s so much in our past that is pointless. When I’m subdued, it’s all easier to just leave behind. I try to keep the fears at bay, and thankfully I have a lot of help. I admit that there’s certainly a logical reason for me to feel intimately unsteady. My libido has absolutely plummeted on this regiment. I went from having sex two or three times a day to only having the desire _maybe_ once a week. But there’s something so sweet in his voice when he tells me I have nothing to worry about. He wouldn’t support me like this just to disrespect all three of us like that. He would be cheating on Seokjin too. The trepidation is unavoidable, but it’s far from dread. I don’t question myself, anymore. I don’t ask myself questions. Even when I can, I don’t. They’re inappropriate. 

I don’t think about my body the way I used to. There are stretch marks fading into the sides of my stomach. The changes have been massive. Seokjin calls them tiger stripes. Yoongi calls them battle scars. As long as I’m healthy, that’s all that matters. That’s the silver lining of all of this: I stopped caring about what other people think. Social norms were, obviously, the least of my concerns throughout this entire process. That’s what allowed me to persevere, that was the breaking point between moving forward and falling apart. I know that’s easy to say when you sit at home in comfortable clothing all day. It isn’t hard to be acceptable when everyone’s expectations of you are so low, but I’m finally giving myself a fair starting point. I’m finally acknowledging my own flaws and asking for help when I need it. I know I’m not a robot now, and that people aren’t all mean. We aren’t inherently evil; the people, the men. That was just the heavy energy. The little voice in my head. Now that it’s gone, I embrace that calm. I enjoy the glass half full. I can feel it in my core.

Hoseok got promoted! He’s so smart, and he’s moving fast. He comes over for meals sometimes. I’m proud of him. He’s so nice to me, even more so than before. I think he feels bad for me. I don’t want him to overcompensate for anything, or to feel remorseful. He’s never taken advantage of anyone. He’s precious. I’m glad Seokjin has a friend like him. A support system. Everyone deserves that. Hoseok actually bought a house! Moved out of the apartment he shared with Taehyung, and Jungkook took his place. Those little brats work at the same grocery store now. They’re saving up money to go to school, but they’re so content. They’ll get great white collar jobs one day. I can see their plans coming together. They visit a lot, actually. We play cards and laugh. Jungkook brings me buns sometimes! He feels bad, because he brought beer once and Yoongi yelled at him about how I can’t drink. Poor boy, he didn’t know. I love them so much. We have sleepovers sometimes. It’s really just an excuse to play the console, because there are so many cooperative games on there. I love Seokjin, but he isn’t always the best gamer! And I have this one game that basically requires three players, no more and no less. So it works well. 

Yoongi’s little brother is going to a really nice university, living with their older brother two hours away. I’m glad that money he acquired came in handy. I haven’t seen their brother since I yelled at him, but I told Yoongi to tell him that I was sick. I think he understands. While we’re being straightforward with negative things (I promised myself I wouldn’t, so I’ll move really fast): Namjoon went back to the complex and I guess he got upset, so he called the police. They got busted, Jackson got deported and there are criminal charges, I don’t know the specifics. They didn’t tell me much, and I can’t blame them! What other people think of me is none of my business. I don’t think there’s karma, I don’t wish bad on anyone. Some things are vague around here, but Yoongi told me just not to worry. That it has all been taken care of. I’m perfectly fine filling my own bubble, now. I don’t need to know everything. Ignorance is bliss. Knowing that and still enjoying it is true happiness.

I wanted a puppy, but Seokjin says we shouldn’t have one because they’re loud and temperamental and stuff. I get it, so he got me a handheld game, a portable console and a digital dog. It’s basically amazing. I can play with it and take care of it and then when I get bored, I just close the top screen and it’s gone. Might as well not make a real chore or whatever out of an elective thing! It makes sense to me. One day, we’ll get pets. A kitten for him, a toy poodle or something for Yoongi. When things are more stable, and when we own a house. We’ll get a house one day, probably sooner rather than later even though I’m not in a rush. Yoongi says that it’s a waste to pay rent. I don’t think any of this is a waste, but he’s so industrious. It’s cute when he’s proactive.

Maybe we’ll adopt children one day, too. There are a lot of kids who don’t have parents or are growing up in bad places. I’d like to help them, if I’m ever capable. I want to study something, and I’m glad I can do it online, but that is just for sustenance. I want to be a stay-at-home, a homemaker. I want to craft the domestic bliss they deserve. Not just for doing all of this for me, or for caring about me, but in general. Maybe I’ll be a writer. That’s the beauty of words, I think. A piece of writing can be confined, paused. When it’s published, the reader never knows how many bathroom breaks, mental stops, meals, or sessions of slumber went into its making. So regardless of anything, children or engagements or pets or living spaces, that’s my goal. All of my advisers tell me to set goals. I want to go to school through the computer, get a four-year program degree in journalism or _something,_ and write. I don’t want to leave this comfort, and if I can make it work, then I won’t.

I keep telling them they can go on a date night together, but they never want to leave me alone. We do my chores before leaving and sometimes go out together, though. We’re always all together. It’s reassuring, somehow. And I tell them to be intimate without me, but it’s hard. I like watching, though. Even when I’m not in the mood, I really enjoy watching. So I get them to, sometimes, and I watch. It’s comforting like a fantasy. I could watch, I could do something in the same room. It’s like wrestling. Animals showing each other love, somehow. I think it’s natural, it’s important, and it’s wonderful. This, all of this. That life could come together like this just for me. 

It took me a long time to tackle the stigma. I don’t have a lot of new friends nowadays, but I prefer quality over quantity. I cherish short-term, finite interactions in virtual chat rooms, and I cherish my lovers and my dear confidants in the flesh much more. My psychiatrist once said that the human brain is basically like a filter, and it’s only generating images and stimuli based off of what it perceives to begin with. So I’m not that weird, I just sometimes have experiences of reality that are unique to me, which can be concerning or potentially dangerous. But thanks to my wonderful support system and the modern miracles of medicine, I am extremely well taken care of. I’ve recognized the nature of emotion. Even if I’m sad forever, I’ll never take what I have for granted. I do deserve this. And I should be so lucky. These men changed my life.

**Author's Note:**

> “I think ‘What was I thinking?’ is the first question a person who starts to examine themselves asks themselves. Because up until that point, life is a series of random events. And life is just what happens to you. And then one day you wake up and you go ‘No actually, I have control over my destiny. Actually, things do happen for a reason. Actually, there is order in the universe’. And when you start tuning in to that frequency, you do have a tendency to look back and go ‘My god, what was I thinking?’ and that is a healthy response.”
> 
> —Madonna, _For the Record_ (2008)


End file.
